Humboldt County, California, confirmed this week that 596 ballots cast in the November 4, 2025 special election were never counted — found sealed inside a locked drop box on May 4, 2026, five months after the December 5 certification deadline.
Officials say a miscommunication between election workers left the box unverified as emptied. The ballot measure in question, Proposition 50, passed by roughly 3,000,000 votes, so the uncounted ballots did not change the outcome — but that is beside the point. The republic does not run on margin of error. It runs on the count being complete before the certification is signed.
The Founders did not build elaborate Article I machinery so that administrators could shrug at 596 unread ballots and point to a comfortable margin. A certified election that wasn't fully counted is not a certified election. Every jurisdiction, every drop box, every ballot deserves the same answer: counted or not counted. There is no third option.